Comedy is a serious business - The Last Laugh

Published Thursday 26 January 2006 at 12:00 by Anthony Cooke

As a semi-finalist in the BBC’s sitcom writing competition The Last Laugh, Anthony Cooke learns some important lessons.

“Writers are rubbish on TV. Who would want to watch a writer? Whose idea was this?”

It is the semi-final stage of the UK’s biggest ever sitcom writing competition, The Last Laugh, and one of the other competitors seems to be psyching me out. In sweaty make-up, hair moussed to breaking point, and with a radio mic strapped where the cameras can’t see it, I’m about to face the judging panel and this banter isn’t helping.

So far, this BBC3 search for budding comedy writers has thankfully lacked the hysterics and tears of reality shows like Fame Academy or The X-Factor. The atmosphere in the empty Hammersmith office block where our fate is being filmed is more like a coffee morning than a hyperactive kids’ party. The knives do come out from time to time, but it is hardly like Sharon and Louis.

I’m here with my writing partner Carl Carter to ‘sell’ our script to four industry heavyweights - The Office producer Ash Atalla, executive producer of Friends Adam Chase, Two Pints of Larger star Natalie Casey, and Last Laugh host Dara O’Briain. Months ago we bashed out an ending to one of eight original sitcom openings, each from a celebrated writer or writers, including Carla Lane, Jonathan Harvey, and Laurence Marks & Maurice Gran.

Like most of the 36 shortlisted writers this is our first stab at sitcom, many have never sold a snippet of script anywhere, and for some this is their first ever sniff at comedy. I sheepishly admit to having “had some comedy stuff on Radio 4, y’know sketches”, and the comment seems to send fellow finalists Reg, Geoff and Trudy into a bit of a spin.

On cue, myself and Carl start our walk down a long gangway to the ‘judgement pod’ where the panel is waiting - “It’ll look really cool… like The Apprentice”, one of the production team tries to reassure us.

There’s a problem and we have to run through our ‘entrance’ a few more times. I reckon it’s our over-moussed hair, which takes us both to well over six foot five. It seems certain when they have to change to a wider lens, forcing host Dara to keep the panel amused. That golden handcuffs deal looks to be slipping away.

No doubt like most of the entrants, for us the competition has been a valuable comedy crutch to get us into our stride with sitcom. The Last Laugh is the first time we’ve written anything longer than a sketch, and it has given our confidence a shot in the arm.

Of the 28 solo writers and four partnerships that have got this far, most of us do fit a mould. Despite an eclectic mix of opening scripts, white, middle class, young men dominate, with a smattering of white, middle class older men for good measure.

Some finalists alarmingly already know each other from the Last Laugh’s web forum - a hugely popular community of eager writers swapping stories, scripts and competition conspiracy theories. The hunger for discussion between entrants, successful or not, has been enormous, and famous names who log-on are quickly web-mobbed.

The Last Laugh follows on from the BBC’s 2004 search for short story writers, End of Story, which got 17,000 people scribbling and a few in discussions with agents. The prize at stake this time is that one of the eight winning scripts will be made into a pilot.

Before the panel sees our pitch and throws us some questions, all 5,000 scripts have been read by BBC experts and whittled down to four per sitcom. The two who win through for each sitcom then get an audience with the original writer, who will pick the winner themselves.

The sitcom we chose to finish, Good Morning Miss Milton, is a zippy family comedy set in a primary school in the vein of The Vicar of Dibley. Hardly surprising seeing as the opening was written by Dibley lynchpin Paul Mayhew-Archer.

Mayhew-Archer’s vox pops from the BBC Three launch show were ringing in our ears as we hammered out our ending: “Keep it in the same world, try to follow the style of what’s gone before, and try to put in some jokes,” he advised.

The My Hero writer also recommended all writers to get their scripts in the hands and mouths of actors: “Even now when I do things I convince myself that what I’ve written is perfect stuff, then it’s read by the cast and you know you can think of a much better joke. So you’ve got to get yourself a performance.”

Thankfully, our prize for getting this far - an industry day laid on at Television Centre the weekend before - also included a live performance of our script at Ealing Studios. We, like most others, did indeed feel patches of it coming away at the seams when actors were actually speaking the lines.

But at least O’Briain seems to agree that this sitcom thing is not easy: “Trying to sit down at a keyboard and be professionally funny… the horror, the horror. I know a little about it because I do have to write my own stand-up material, but to put words into other people’s mouths and construct a plot, that’s a whole other ballgame,” he says.

So what’s the thing he’s most looking for in a good script?

“Characters are the building blocks of any sitcoms. Without strong characters, it could just be a bunch of people bickering and frankly, if I want to see that, I can invite the family round.”

Whether our hair managed to get in shot, let alone win through to the final, will have to be left to the TV show to reveal - I can’t risk the contractual backlash. Each Saturday night episode will profile one of the eight initial writers and look at aspects of TV comedy, with snippets of the competition woven in.

When we are called back on-set for the result to be filmed, another of the production team reminds us why we’re doing all this: “Make sure you’ve all got your mobiles with you, so we can film you calling loved-ones if you win.”

Good entertainment, it seems, always needs a good script.

• The Last Laugh runs on BBC Three on Saturdays at until March 11.